You might wonder why engaging an enemy like this was such a big thing. After all, they’re the best of the best; they’re trained for this, right?
Well, yes... and no.
See like most spec op units, these guys are loaded for bear. Often carrying the latest weapons including every type of fire power you can imagine.
In fact, the
2 Commando unit was actually
hyper-trained in the use of firearms in extremely close-quarter fighting. They knew everything about actually firing weapons in
extreme close quarters.
It’s just that NO ONE had ever thought about what to expect in that eyeball-to-eyeball ultra-extreme world of combat where all you really have is... YOU!
Your own body weapons.
Now, let me interject something we talk about in our own TFT training: if you haven’t trained to use your own body as your primary weapon, and suddenly inside the chaos of violence that’s ALL you’ve got,
you immediately revert to whatever you did the last time you were in a fight.
(Imagine what that is if your last fight was as a 13-year-old kid. Or worse, you’ve never hit anyone in your life!)
Fortunately for this commander, his survival instincts and prior training pulled him through.
Others in his unit weren’t so fortunate.
He was so shaken by what happened, he vowed on his return to Australia to personally change the glaring error in their training regime.
And he did. But it didn’t stop there because...
...by the time he finished he’d almost single-handedly reconfiguring the entire close-quarter fighting (CQF) program the Australian Special Forces employed at that time, creating a new system now called International Combative Concepts, ICC℠ (no one loves acronyms like the military).
(In a nutshell, ICC is an integrated approach to personal combat that fully utilizes every weapon system a spec operator has but
especially allows him to maintain – or regain – access to his most important weapon system – usually his
firearm!)
While this man remained nameless (for obvious security reasons), the similarity to what I had personally worked on years ago at Naval Special Warfare Command ended up keeping me in near-constant contact with Taff Davies.
(Remember, that while assigned to the Admiral in charge of all US Navy SEAL teams, I worked on the team that upgraded their hand-to-hand fighting program – the origin of TFT.)
What was so intriguing about what these Australians were doing was the fact...